A Little Child

Written: May 18, 1998
Tamara Temple

Once upon a time, there was a little child. This little child lived with his family, and was uaually very happy. The child was not very old, however, when he began to notice things that were not quite as he suspected they should be. For one, his Mom and Dad were nice, but not very close. They didn’t really fight, but they didn’t really talk and laugh and make fun together. The little child loved his parents very much, and he thought they loved him, too. But the only thing the child could determine was they were not happy, not happy like he thought they should be. So the little boy took it upon himself to make sure the Mom was happy, as she was the closest to him.

Things continued through the child’s young life this way, but nothing seemed to make it any better. It wasn’t bad, it just wasn’t as much fun as it could be. The little child felt selfish at times, but then also felt bad that he couldn’t make it any better.

Now, this little child also was confused about a lot of things, including, what his role should be in the family. He wanted so much to be like his Mom, to be able to make her happy, and to make sure he was loved and liked. But what the child didn’t realize was that he was unable to do so.

Another feeling that was confusing the child was his continual feeling of not having the right body. It was very hard to explain, and he knew that if he complained, his Mom would stop liking him (confused little cuss, huh?). So he held in his feelings, and continued on as before.

The little child was learning how to cope with the world, and that was very hard for him, since his internal feelings were so jumbled up that he had to use how others felt in order to make sense of his world.

During this time, his father became very sick, and was hospitalized. The little child didn’t really understand what was going on, but assumed it was something else he should try to make better. Of course, his Mom was worried about his Dad, and didn’t respond well to the little child’s attempts at making things better.

Soon enough, his Dad was out of the hospital and back home. It was strange and tense around the house. The little child wanted so much to be able to talk to his Mom and Dad about his thoughts and feelings, but whenever anything personal was mentioned, it was often brushed aside or laughed at, and the little child soon learned that the kinds of feelings he had were wrong, and not to be discussed.

So again, trying to make everything work, and trying to make his world make sense, he tried to make people happy, and not do the things he knew would make them unhappy.

The little child grew up, and eventually became more and more adept at recognizing other’s needs and recognizing how he could get people to respond favorably around him. He became astute at reading people’s thought and feelings, and manipulating his own feelings and behavior so that it would match others. This enabled the child to be accepted as normal in so many ways.

However, the feeling inside of being in the wrong body still possessed the child and never left him.